Monday February 20, 2006(Audio) Homily by Fr. Robert AltierSeventh Week in Ordinary Time

Reading (James 3:13-18)Gospel (St. Mark 9:14-29)

In the first
reading today, Saint James talks to us about wisdom and understanding. He tells
us that these are gifts that come from above, and if we have true wisdom and
understanding from above then they will be exercised in humility. And he tells
us that we will find it in purity, peaceableness, gentleness, compliance,
mercy, good fruits, consistency, and sincerity. Those are the things one can look
for to see if the wisdom we have is really from God. If, on other hand, we find
that there is jealousy and selfish ambition then it is clearly not from God.
Even worse, not only is it earthly and unspiritual, but he tells us it is
demonic. So we realize that if we are playing around with things like selfish
ambition and jealousy that we are giving into the devil, not that we are
possessed by any means, but rather the devil has a hold on us and we are giving
into it because of our own jealousy.

What we need to be
able to do is simply accept ourselves with the weaknesses that we have. That is
part of wisdom. It does not mean we want to stay in a weakened state, but it is
going to take time and prayer to be able to overcome these things. Some things,
which are just part of who we are, we are never going to get rid of and we have
to accept that. For instance, the level of intelligence that a person has is
fixed. There is nothing you can do to make yourself a genius if you are not
one; it is just that simple. You have to accept. “This is who I am and this is
what God gave me.” Praise Him for that. There are people who get jealous over
other people’s talents and abilities. “Why can they do all those things and I
can’t?” That is not the question. The question is: Can we praise God for what
He has given to someone else and accept what He has given to us and praise Him
for what He has given to us rather than looking at everyone else?

Now we look at the
situation in the Gospel today and we find some scribes arguing with Jesus’
disciples because the disciples are not able to cast out the demon. What are
they arguing about? They are arguing because the disciples probably were upset
– because of their selfish ambition and their jealousy – that they could not
get rid of this thing, and then they started fighting. For what? Because they
were not able to kick out a demon. Jesus makes very clear to them that there
are some which can only be gotten rid of by prayer.

There are even some
stories about the fact that the priests were not able to cast out a demon and
some of the female saints then got involved. For instance, Saint Clare did this
once. She heard about an exorcism that was going on and it was not going very
well. Finally she said, “Bring him to me.” She prayed, rebuked the thing, and
it left. You can see the power of prayer, the power of holiness that was there.
Not that we are all going to be running around kicking out demons, but in this
case it was because of the holiness of the individual that it worked so well.
That is true, actually, in any exorcism. The holier the priest, the easier it
is going to go.

Regardless of all
of that, the other thing that we see happening here, and this is something very
important for all of us especially with our jealousy and our selfish ambition,
is that Jesus regularly gives us opportunities to see all of our problems. How
many times did He have to rebuke His disciples for arguing about different
things? They were fighting about who was most important. James and John wanted
to call down fire on the village that would not receive the Lord. They were
constantly getting themselves into problems because of their selfishness and
their jealousies. So here again, the Lord allows this to happen. He is up on
the mountain with Peter, James, and John, and this man brings the possessed boy
and the disciples cannot deal with it, so they get angry and start fighting.
Why? But isn’t that what He does to us all the time?

What are the areas
of weakness that God wants you to work on? It does not take a genius to figure
it out – just look at what keeps happening in your life! He keeps setting you
up. He brings situations into your life, you fall flat on your face, and then
you get angry. There is no need to get angry; that is God’s way of showing you
where the weakness is (anger, by the way, being one of them). He is trying to
help us see where the problems are and what needs to be worked on. So He keeps
poking at us, preparing us, and setting us up for different things. Do not look
for something to work on if God is giving you something. It is going to be
right there in front of you regularly. Work on the situations and the virtues
that God is placing in your life. Cooperate with Him. As long as He is giving
you the opportunities, why fight with Him? Just cooperate. Accept what He is
doing, recognize the weakness, and start to develop the virtue. Use the
situations for good rather than for evil. That is what the Lord is looking for
from us.

Then we need to
accept ourselves. Do not get angry and do not get frustrated with yourself and
do not call yourself names. It is not going to help anything. Just accept
yourself with your weakness and then work on trying to overcome it. Again, that
acceptance does not say, “This is the way it is and it’s going to stay this
way.” When it comes to virtue, we have to accept that, yes, this is who we are,
this is the weakness, but we are going to work on it and with God’s help we
will become stronger and more virtuous. That is the attitude we have to have.
Pride says, “I should be better than this.” It is pride, then, that leads to
the jealousy, to the bitterness, to the anger, to the envy, and to all of the
other problems that we get ourselves into. What the Lord wants is for us to be
humble and to accept. That is what it comes down to. So we look at the apostles
and we look at ourselves and we see that the pattern has not changed. The Lord
continues to work to teach us the lessons that are most important and to
realize that while these things are not demons, the vices in our lives can only
be overcome through prayer.

*This text was
transcribed from the audio recording of a homily by Father Robert Altier with minimal editing.